Cascade Point

"I see." The Drymnu paused again. "You mentioned a third reason for games."

"Yes, I did."

—

Slightly surprised he was still alive, Elliot stepped out from under the last tree and stood once more on a vast plain. The forest had been grueling. No fewer than eight attacks had been launched at him, some of them back to back. He'd won all of them, but at high cost. His weaponry had been reduced to ten seconds' worth of laser fire and two concussion grenades, plus his hunting knife. His armor was damaged in several places, his left arm was injured and could only be moved at half speed, and he was limping from a piece of one of his own fragmentation grenades in his ankle. The Orion Nomad was in bad shape, and there was still at least a kilometer to go.

Ahead of him, dotting the plain, were thirty or so large humpbacked creatures, apparently grazing. With his binoculars, Elliot took a moment to study their small heads, flat vegetarian teeth, and defense-oriented porcupinelike quills. Clearly, they were not predators, and chances were they wouldn't attack unless he spooked them. Taking a deep breath, and one more look into the woods behind him, he limped carefully forward.

Several of the creatures paused in their meal to glare as he passed slowly among them, but none of them made any move against him. He was about twenty meters past the last one, and begi

They were not exactly Earth-type tigers, of course; Elliot had given them that name after a run-in with three of the species in the forest, a battle he'd barely survived. With his injuries and shrinking power supply, he knew he'd never win another fight. And to make matters worse, the quilled animals were also apparently afraid of the tigers, for they had abandoned their grazing and were ru

There was no time for conscious thought. Elliot's next move was one of pure reflex. Snatching a concussion grenade, he armed it and tossed it to land directly in front of the lead quillback. The creature went down, stu

And there was instant pandemonium. Elliot, completely forgotten in the clash, kept moving, making for the edge of the plain as fast as he could. The sounds of the battle were fading behind him as he topped a rise—and barely managed to stop in time. Just past the rise was a three-meter drop into a twenty-meter-wide gully ru

Army ants, or their equivalent.

Elliot wiped a sudden layer of sweat off his forehead. For some reason forever lost in his past, masses of insects horrified him as even tigers couldn't do, and even seeing them on a TV screen was enough to make him feel shaky. But he couldn't stop now. Across a gray mud flat directly ahead of him, nestled among some stubby bushes and the ubiquitous cattail plants, was the squat egg-shape that was his lifter. Opening the stopcock of his remaining helium tank, he filled the balloons and floated to a height of a few centimeters. Taking a deep breath, he fired a short burst from his jets and drifted over the ants.

His progress was slow, due mainly to a mild headwind, and—largely to avoid looking at the ants—he found himself studying the gray ground ahead. The closer he got, the less it looked like a mud flat, and the more like quicksand. It was, at least, an easy theory to test. Taking his compass, he tossed it ahead of him into the middle of the flat area. It hit with a muffled splat and slowly sank from sight.

So Elliot would simply continue flying over it, instead of landing as he had originally pla

He was past the ants now and at the edge of the quicksand. Pointing his laser downwards, he took his last concussion grenade in his left hand, set it for a five- second fuse, and waited.

A slight motion of the mire was his only warning, but he was ready; and even as the dripping tentacle snaked toward him he fired into it, simultaneously dropping the grenade. The tentacle writhed away, and he fired at three more that rose to meet him. And then the ground exploded, showering him with muck. Dropping limply as suddenly as they had emerged, the tentacles lay briefly on the quicksand before disappearing beneath its surface.

He reached solid ground moments later, deflating his balloons with a sigh of relief. Now all that remained was for him to walk the remaining fifty meters to the lifter, step into the open door, and press the "return" lever.

The open door? Elliot stopped, suddenly suspicious. There was no reason for it to be open... unless it held a final present from Doomheim.

There were no stones nearby that Elliot could throw that distance, but his direction finder was the right size and weight. He arched it squarely through the door—and a cloud of angry insects exploded from inside the lifter, buzzing to within ten meters of him in search of their attacker. Resisting the urge to run or shoot, Elliot stood stock-still and waited for them to return to their appropriated metal nest. He didn't know whether or not they were dangerous, but he rather expected they were and certainly didn't want to find out the hard way. The problem now was to find a way, with what was left of his equipment, to get rid of them.

By the time the last of the insects had gone back into the lifter he had a plan. Moving as quietly as possible, he picked an armload of the cattail plants and carried them as close as he dared to the lifter door. The TV screen informed him that the breeze had shifted and was now at his back, a stroke of luck. Removing his balloons, he emptied the remainder of the steering-jet fuel onto the pile of plants. Another armload of cattails went on top, followed by a layer of wet plants from the edge of the quicksand. Then he backed off, and, crossing his fingers, ignited the mass with his laser.

It was all he could have hoped for. The pile burst into flame, sending a thick column of dense white smoke directly into the lifter. The insects never had a chance. Minutes later, respirator firmly in place, Elliot stepped through the door, crunching dazed insects underfoot, and pressed the proper lever.

The game was over. Elliot Burke—the Orion Nomad—had defeated Doomheim IV.

—

"The third reason for games," the Sirrachat said, "is one which I fear I may never truly understand. Virtually all fragmented races that have been studied obtain a particular emotional satisfaction from games, a satisfaction not only far out of proportion to the actual victory involved, but possibly even unco

"How wasteful," the Drymnu murmured. "How very wasteful."

—

Elliot slumped in his chair, ignoring the congratulatory messages appearing on his screen. He had won; he had defeated Doomheim IV. He should be ecstatically happy. But he wasn't... and he knew why.

No less than three times tonight he'd run into ideas lifted directly from his own worlds. In a very real sense, he'd actually wound up fighting himself.